Help protect residents’ data with the ICO’s new Ripple Effect campaign

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) have launched a new campaign called the Ripple Effect campaign, aiming to help social landlords protect residents’ data.  

To help social housing providers do this effectively, the ICO have produced new resources and messaging to help frontline staff ‘stop the ripple effect’ and protect data. This includes best practice around data handling, updating systems and minimising the risk of human error. 

In the social housing sector, we know residents can often be higher at a risk if data breaches do happen. For people who are survivors of domestic abuse, or have extra care or support needs, data protection breaches can have particularly harmful consequences. Our sector is committed to providing good practice on data protection and making sure data protection policies are up to date. 

The new guidance from the ICO includes good practice on: 

• Communicating with empathy if a data breach does happen.  
• How to understand risk in personal data breaches.  
• How to minimise the risk of personal data breaches happening. 
• How to respond to a personal data breach in the first 72 hours. 

The ICO are also running a survey to hear feedback on their campaign and the usefulness of resources. You can fill out the survey here. 

If you have any questions on the campaign or would like to know more about supporting residents on data issues, please contact our team using the details below.